Problems booting frugal install [Solved]

[kjp]

First, the environment:
AMD Athlon 64x2, 2,1 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, 250GB IDE disk, Asus M2A-VM HDMI mb, Sapphire Radeon 3650 512 MB video board, Iiyama ProLite E481S 19" LCD.
Disk partitions;
sda1 FAT32 10 GB boot
sda5 NTFS 80 GB Windows XP
sda6 swap 1 GB
sda7 ext3 39 GB Mandriva 2010 Free
Using Puppy 4.31 with Firefox.

Booting to Windows XP, Mandriva and LivePuppy on CD works just fine. I've installed Puppy frugal install using Puppy Universal Installer on to sda7 (ext3) using Puppy431 directory. I updated Grub menu.lst to read:

rootnoverify (hd0,6)
kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 nosmp
initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz

as installer told me to do.

When I try to boot to fugal Puppy, it'll start fine, switching on to root, updating network drivers and then tells me "Loadin kernel modules..."
and goes to outer space.

Adding LOGLEVEL=7 to the Grub kernel line tells more. It fails to get into terms with graphics board. This is same place from successful LivePuppy bootkernel.log:

Linux agpgart interface v0.103
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
piix4_smbus 0000:00:14.0: SMBus Host Controller at 0xb00, revision 0
HDA Intel 0000:00:14.2: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
HDA Intel 0000:01:00.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
HDA Intel 0000:01:00.1: setting latency timer to 64

what appears to console during failing frugal boot is that PCI INT A end up being IRQ 3 and PCI INT B using IRQ 0 and then it says "unable to grab IRQ 0, disabling device. Probe of 0000:01:00.1 failed with error=10"

and then comes few more messages concerning network card and eth0, and that's it. System hangs until I use reset button.

Is there any way to grab the console messages? As far as I was able to see, everything up to that point seemed to go normally, but there are lots of messages that scroll by awfully fast. Could be that it gets off the track at some other place.

Motherboard has another graphics controller (Radeon X1250) of its own (AMD 690G/SB600 chipset) and I don't know any way to actually disable it. I have set this Radeon 3650 board as the default system to use and of course the monitor is connected to that. Could this extra graphics controller be using problems? It works on LivePuppy, though.

I checked Mandriva dmesg as well, and it produces pretty much the same log as Live Puppy.

I have used this same CD to install to couple other systems with no problems (well, not this kind of problems, anyway), so CD appears to be okay.

I have now cleared up and reinstalled Puppy frugal twice. Results are the same. And after maybe 5-6 reboots it always hangs up in same place with same messages.

Sigh.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Béèm]

I suppose you configured xorg.
Could you show the xorg.conf here?

[kjp]

Sorry, it never gets there. Boot hangs up after that. Is there some way to retain the log? I have reset the system, it does not react to any keys or commands.

But here is the xorg.conf from the LivePuppy, if it is any help:

#Special base config file used in Puppy Linux.

# **********************************************************************
# Module section -- this section is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# **********************************************************************
#
Section "Module"

# This loads the DBE extension module.

Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension

# This loads the miscellaneous extensions module, and disables
# initialisation of the XFree86-DGA extension within that module.
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection

# This loads the font modules
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"

# This loads xtrap extension, used by xrandr
Load "xtrap"

# This loads the GLX module (if present)
Load "glx"

# This loads dri module (if present)
Load "dri"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Files section. This allows default font and rgb paths to be set
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"

# The location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.

RgbPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (which are concatenated together),
# as well as specifying multiple comma-separated entries in one FontPath
# command (or a combination of both methods)

FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"

# Uncomment this to disable the <Crtl><Alt><Fn> VT switch sequence
# (where n is 1 through 12). This allows clients to receive these key
# events.

# Option "DontVTSwitch"

# Enables mode switching with xrandr
# There is a report that this can cause Xorg not to work on some
# video hardware, so default is commented-out...
# but i want to use it in xorgwizard so leave on...

Option "RandR" "on"

EndSection

#everything past here is auto-generated by Puppy's Xorg Wizard...


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
Option "XkbLayout" "fi" #xkeymap0
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" #mouse0protocol
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
#Option "Emulate3Buttons"
#Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" #scrollwheel
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
HorizSync 24-83
VertRefresh 55-72
#UseModes "Modes0" #monitor0usemodes
Option "PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes0"
#modes0modeline0
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa" #card0driver
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubsection
EndSection

#PuppyHardwareProfile=ATI_ATOMBIOSPLE480_481

[Béèm]

Sorry for my stupid question.
As you didn't come to the desktop, you couldn't get at xorg.conf.

What happens if you start the frugal with pfix=ram added to the kernel.
(for a test you can edit the frugal entry in the grub menu, but I suppose you know that)

[kjp]

Used my phone camera to preserve the final messages of frozen frugal boot.

Linux agpgart interface v0.103
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
piix4_smbus 0000:00:14.0: SMBus Host Controller at 0xb00, revision 0
HDA Intel 0000:00:14.2: PCI INT A -> Link[LNKA] (level, low) -> IRQ 3
HDA Intel 0000:01:00.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 0 (level, low) -> IRQ 0
hda-intel unable to grab IRQ 0, disabling device
HDA Intel 0000:01:00.1: PCI INT B disabled
HDA Intel : probe of 0000:01:00.1 failed with error -16

So there is something wrong (or at least different compared to LivePuppy bootlog in probing the first device (14.2). Since I don't have a clue what they mean (what is GSI or Link(LNKA)?), don't know if that's any help. But system ends up using IRQ 3 for first device and IRQ 0 for the second, while on LivePuppy (and Mandriva) they are IRQs 16 and 19, respectively.
And LivePuppy ends up using the second device (1:00.1), which is disabled here.

Well, I'll have to pack it now and go do something totally different. When I get back, I'll probably try attaching monitor to the motherboard controller and take out the Radeon card to see if it works then.

[kjp]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll put that into grub line and try booting.

[Béèm]

I think I read somewhere in a forum that there could be a difference in device detection between CD boot and frugal HDD boot.
Maybe the reason you have this IRQ issue.

But these things are beyond my knowledge.

If you are on the frugal boot kernel line, just push e and you can add the pfix=ram.
b is for boot then.

[kjp]

Tried booting with pfix=ram but it was no go, results were the same. And I remembered seeing that "copy to ram" message every time, so apparently it is default behaviour.

I had some problems on an old system where I couldn't use Xorg on a full install while it worked fine with LivePuppy, so there probably are some differences between them.

Thanks anyway.

[Béèm]

The only thing I just think of is trying with vga=normal on the kernel line.

[kjp]

Tried adding vga=normal into grub. The results were exactly the same as before.

I'll try removing the graphics board tomorrow (well, later today). And need to look up those kernel parameters if there is something else to try.

Thanks and good night.

[Béèm]

A couple of other ideas:

You could try with acpi=off

Some people have reported having good results with the retro version, even on a more modern PC

With the puppysearch link in my sig you could try to find post on irq, radeon, sapphire.

[kjp]

Thank you, Béèm. You are most wonderful person and if anyone ever doubts it, I am willing to give a sworn statement to that effect.

When I added the acpi=off into the kernel line, Puppy booted up just nice. Of course, at this point I have already removed the Radeon board and told BIOS to forget everything about it. But now I do have a base point where things work, so I know if things stop working, it is something I did.

So now I'll start putting things back (retaining that acpi=off parameter), so I'll see where it starts to fall apart. Actually, I think it will work with graphics board just fine. Of course, I tend to be an optimist:).

Thanks again, I'll post the end result when done.

[Béèm]

I blush with your overwhelming compliment.
And keep my fingers crossed.
Really eager to see the end result.

[kjp]

Graphics card is back, motherboard graphics is (sort of) disabled and Puppy plays quite nice with it. So this acpi=off saved the day. Somehow frugal install's hw detection became mixed up where live version managed to handle it. Weird.

Sometime during the weekend I'll do the frugal install on my main system, which also has Asus motherboard (M3A78-T) with AMD790GX+SB750 chipset and on-board graphics and has another Radeon on PCI-E board. Just to see if this IRQ cock-up repeats there.

Lessons learned: always try acpi=off parameter if things go bad on boot. And even if LivePuppy works, it doesn't mean that HD install (frugal or full) do without some tuning.

Thanks again, Béèm.

[rjbrewer]

The acpi=off code has mostly been needed with puppy 4.3.1;
sometimes for boot, but mostly to get a clean shutdown.
If installing puppy to the drive, add that parameter to the end of
the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

A few more boot params:
puppy irqpoll
puppy pci=biosirq
puppy pci=routeirq
puppy pnpbios=off
puppy ide=nodma